Tyler Sloan has enjoyed, earned, quite a heapin’ helpin’ of ice time in his “second” tour of duty with Les Capitales.  After skating almost 19 minutes on Wednesday in Carolina, he logged 21:34 TOI tonight in the 3-1 home win over the Devils, which Coach Boudreau called “a really hard-fought game,” and was out there in the final minute of that hard-fought affair.

I chatted post-game with Sloan (who was wearing one of those training camp issued t-shirts which read “the future is now” and, on the back, “good is not good enough”) about his brief, but quite eventful, NHL career, and about keepin’ er going:

Did Coach give you any indication that you’d get this many minutes in the last couple of games?

Actually, when we were in Carolina, [Assistant Coach] Jay [Leach] said ‘You know, you might be getting a few more minutes tonight, so just be ready.’

A few more?!

Yeah [laughs], I got about 9, 10 more minutes, and it was the same again tonight.  They gave me a little heads up in Carolina but I was just ready for it again tonight. 

So I gotta go back a few games.  Your first goal.  There’s this photo of you.  Some AP photo.  And it’s perfect.  It’s got you in mid-swing — you’ve seen the photo?

Yeah [grins], Turco sprawling.

I saw that and I thought, you’ve got to have that somewhere.  Have you blown it up to poster-size? 

You know what, somebody had it, and they showed it to me and I said ‘I gotta get a hold of that.’  I talked to Ian here and there was a CD that has a bunch of pictures of my first three or four games, and it was on there.  So I’m going to get it printed off, hopefully, and get something done.  I think the team is going to do something for my first goal.  I’m going to get it blown up or, do something, we’ll see.

AP Photo/Matt Slocum

AP Photo/Matt Slocum

You’re really kind of living day-to-day up here right now and it’s got to be really difficult having to deal with — you see some players getting injured, some struggling, and you think ‘Here’s my chance’ but, on the other hand, you want your team to do well.  How do you deal with those conflicting emotions?

It’s tough, like you said, It’s just day-to-day.  You just come to the rink and be ready to play.  You look at who is in the lineup and you can’t really worry about guys that are injured.  You don’t want to see your teammates be injured.  You want to put out the best lineup you can, but, I just come to the rink and, if I’m in, I’m ready to play.

It is tough, day-to-day.

What’s your living situation like?

They’ve got me in a corporate apartment, right across the street from the rink.  I can’t really get groceries so, you know, I’ve been eating out a lot.  But I just control what I can control.  I can’t control the decisions that the coaches are going to make and can’t control the injuries.

Do you have a roommate?

No, just by myself right now.  Whoever next gets called up, I’m sure — It’d be nice to have a roommate, but I’m just on my own right now.

Has anyone talked about the rookie dinner?  It’s gotta be comin’ up.

Yeah, it’s coming around.  It’s in the air right now.  I don’t know if I’m going to be going or not [on the West Coast road trip, beginning Sunday].  I guess we’ll find out on Sunday.  I don’t know, we haven’t talked about costs, for myself.

It’s just going to be you, right?

No, Fehrsie.  He hasn’t payed yet.  [Mike Vogel corroborated this point later.]  It’s going to be a big chunk of change.  I don’t know if I’m going to have to pay the whole thing.  I better sign up for American Express here or something.

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And, of course, when talking about Tyler Sloan, we couldn’t resist posting #89’s legendary open-ice smack of Daymond Langkow for your enjoyment: